Categories

Blog

Summer Camp are more than just a great band to us. They've provided us with many-a-chuckles at their fun and quirky social media posts and their comments on women in the music industry have made us pause for thought. All of this, on top of their amazing tunes, has made us super excited for their show here this weekend! We got in touch with Jeremy from the band to catch up before the show...

Your album came out earlier this year and since then you’ve played an abundance of shows and festivals. How has the new stuff been received? And how have the summer shows been?

It's been great! A particular highlight was a festival in Brescia, Italy called Musical Zoo. The pizza! Oh, the pizza.

Your social media posts always keep us entertained. How important do you think Facebook, Instagram etc are for the music industry these days?

It's just another way to communicate with the people who are interested in your music. Pop music is about so much more than just the tunes - we like to try to make a whole world for our songs to live in and social media is a big part of that.

Elizabeth wrote a great piece for The Guardian recently about women in the music industry, which highlighted some pretty shameful examples of sexism. It clearly exists, but do you think it’s getting better than it was?

I don't have direct first-hand experience of this very real & difficult issue. It does seem like it's definitely a lot better than it was in, say, the 70s - the awful experiences of Jackie Fox of the Runaways being particularly illustrative - but there's still a long way to go. In particular we always find it bananas how few women there are in bands and in technical positions in venues - we can count the number of female sound engineers we've worked with on the fingers of one hand.

You’ve played in Nottingham before a few times and we are the last of your shows in the UK. What can we expect?

Without giving too much away - the new album, Bad Love, is heavily influenced by 90s horror movies & teen horror fiction, and that's definitely made its way through to the live show...

Sounds interesting, we look forward to it!

Summer Camp play The Bodega this Sunday 4th October. Tickets are available here.

Canadian rock 'n roller Danko Jones is back on UK turf to promote his latest record Fire Music. He's stopping off here at The Bodega so we caught up with him before the show...

You’re heading over to the UK for the first part of your Europe tour (and of course you’re going to be playing at our venue). What do you guys like the most about coming to theUK?

UK crowds have always been great for us. They usually know the music and the music references we use so it makes for a great back and forth. Sometimes, when we play other places, certain attendees come to the show because they liked a certain song or album but UK audiences have a wide breadth of knowledge they bring to the show.

Your new album came out earlier this year and you did a few live shows to promote it. How did it feel playing the new songs out?

A few? We’ve done a solid 7 months of touring. The new songs are sounding great live and we’re throwing more new songs off FIRE MUSIC, our new album, into our live show than previous albums.

On top of playing in the band, you have a load of other projects going (podcasts, spoken word etc). Is this how you like to relax away from the band?

Yes, it most definitely is a way to relax and unwind. Other people like to go hiking, watch television and bird watch, I like doing podcasts and talking shit. I’ve always loved the spoken word medium. I had a college radio show for years so the mixture of words and music was an easy move. It helps that the podcast platform has exploded in recent years.

What can Bodega-goers expect from your show with us?

I’ve never seen a show of ours live but from what people tell me it is the greatest live Rock N’ Roll show around.

Hello students and people of Nottingham! Thank you for visiting our blog. You're probably here because you've received one of our leaflets that can turn into a handy little box. Well, you've come to the right place, because here are the instructions on how to do it! Don't forget to send us your finished products using the hashtag #bodegabox.

Step 1 - With the writing face up fold one edge of the square to the opposite edge to make a triangle. Open up the leaflet again and fold the other two edges together. Once the leaflet is opened up again there will be an X in the middle of it.

Step 2 - Fold four triangles into the centre of the leaflet using the X you just made as a guideline. Once you have done this, fold two triangles back.

Step 3 - Using the centre line, fold both sides over and flatten.

Step 4 - Fold over one end diagonally and repeat on the other end. It should look like the below. Un-fold the ends and flatten it back out again.

Step 5 - Do the same thing but this time folding the ends the other way. Flatten it back out and lift up the two sides (like on the 4th picture).

Step 6 - Grab the end and tuck in the folds so that you can fold your edge over neatly. Repeat on the other side.

Having supported Catfish and The Bottlemen and The Vaccines and playing sets to huge crowds at Reading and Leeds festival, The Bulletproof Bomb have probably just had the most important summer of their musical career so far. They're embarking on a tour this month to promote their latest release 'Siege' and they are back at The Bodega for a headline show on Tuesday! We spoke to them ahead of the show about their year so far...

You played here over summer as part of our Hockney Live clubnights. Did you enjoy the show?

Yeah definitely, we had a great time in Nottingham last time and I remember the support acts being quality as well. The people who showed up came in numbers & brought their finest moves so we're hoping for more of the same.

Since then you’ve been busy playing shows for Ibiza Rocks and Croatia Rocks. Best summer ever?

Yeah it's probably up there in my top 20 at the very least, playing those shows was a surreal experience though. We were well interested to see what those places were like as the typical Ibiza scene just isn't our thing, but we were happily surprised by the whole experience, and the Ibiza Rocks guys were all super cool. Plus, there's a photo out there somewhere of Mike in a Dalmatian costume which is worth the trip alone.

What’s the next step for you guys? Can we expect a release anytime soon?

We just announced our new single Siege to come out on September 25th, then we have another larger release sometime shortly after that. Keep your ears open at all times in case it comes out of nowhere and socks you silly.

Finally, Reading looked amazing, how did you find it and was it the best crowed you have ever played too?

Reading was fucking amazing. I'm still floating a bit from it. We got there and were worried as we were the first band on all weekend. We thought that no one would be fucked to see us and we were hoping for at least 50 people to play to at the beginning and we hoped to catch some wanderers too, so when we walked out to a crowd of about 800 it was unbelievable. We opened with Suitcase and it felt great as their excitement and our excitement converged more & more throughout the song and suddenly we were all somewhere else. Probably our best show, yeah.

The Bulletproof Bomb play The Bodega this week on Tuesday 15th September. Support comes from local artists Vanity Box and The Age of Stella. Tickets are available here.

Currently on tour with Manchester Orchestra, The Dear Hunter are embarking on some of their own shows soon including one here at The Bodega! These headline shows are all to promote their latest album which you can pre-order here. We spoke to them about this new album ahead of their show...

Your new album ‘Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise’ is out early next month. What can we expect from this one?

We are all so excited for Act IV to get out and into the world! You can expect a lot of the orchestration and musical theatrics that were in the previous acts (and from a band with a singer who has written a symphony…) but with a lot of the stylistic variation and growth of the bands post-Act III releases. Its a really important Act regarding the actual story, and there are some twists and turns that are definitely reflected in the music.

You’re currently doing some shows with Manchester Orchestra. What have those shows been like?

These shows have been a lot of fun for us. The Manchester Orchestra guys are good friends of ours whom we have toured with before, so it just feels like another really fun day at the office.

You’re on tour for a good few months at the minute. Do you ever get any days off and if so, how do you like to spend your time?

We try to make sure we have time for days off, but haven’t had any in Europe that weren’t set aside for longer drives. We truthfully are quite lethargic on our days off and tend to try to head to a movie, or find a great local brewery or guitar shop to visit. It just depends where we are really, but we usually keep it pretty low key. We’re super excited to get our feet on the ground in all of England!

The Dear Hunter will be playing The Bodega this Friday 28th September. Tickets are available here.